Politics

Second set of Jeffrey Epstein court filings unsealed in New York

Key Points
  • A second batch of court filings related to sex predator Jeffrey Epstein were unsealed in New York.
  • The release comes a day after the first group of more than three dozen court filings were unsealed, making public names of people associated with Epstein.
  • Names mentioned in the new documents include Doug Band, a former aide to ex-President Bill Clinton, Yucaipa Cos. co-founder Ron Burkle, the journalists Vicky Ward and Sharon Churcher, and Eva Dubin, the wife of billionaire Glenn Dubin.
  • Clinton himself is mentioned in the new documents, and he was previously mentioned by name in the first tranche of filings unsealed Wednesday.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend de Grisogono Sponsors The 2005 Wall Street Concert Series Benefiting Wall Street Rising, with a Performance by Rod Stewart, at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on March 15, 2005.
Joe Schildhorn | Patrick McMullan | Getty Images

A second batch of court filings related to sex predator Jeffrey Epstein were unsealed in New York on Thursday.

The release comes a day after the first group of more than three dozen court filings were unsealed, making public names of people associated with Epstein, a money manager who accumulated a fortune in excess of $500 million at the time of his death by suicide in 2019.

The fact that peoples' names appear in the files does not necessarily mean they engaged in wrongdoing.

The new filings Thursday comprise 19 exhibits, totaling 327 pages of previously sealed court documents that were docketed in a Manhattan federal court lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Epstein's procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell. That case was settled out of court in 2017.

Names mentioned in the new documents include Doug Band, a former aide to ex-President Bill Clinton, Yucaipa Cos. co-founder Ron Burkle, the journalists Vicky Ward and Sharon Churcher, and Eva Dubin, who is the wife of billionaire Glenn Dubin.

A spokesperson for Glenn Dubin on Wednesday told NBC News that he "strongly den[ies] these allegations" that Giuffre was directed to have sex with him, calling them unsubstantiated statements. A spokesman for Burkle had no immediate comment, and Band did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Churcher told CNBC she had not seen the document released Thursday, which related to Maxwell's attempt to subpoena her because of her reporting on Giuffre. Maxwell's lawyer had argued that Churcher was not acting as a journalist but as a friend to Giuffre in her dealings with her.

"I'm a professional journalist and throughout this saga the only input I've had to this saga is as a journalist," Churcher said. She added, referring to Giuffre, that "I have huge admiration for her character in this."

Ward told CNBC that she understood herself to be listed as a potential witness in the case because of her prior reporting on other victims of Epstein.

"I'm in there because I'm a journalist who was on this," Ward said.

Clinton himself is mentioned in the new documents, and he was previously mentioned by name in the first tranche of filings unsealed Wednesday.

A spokesman for Clinton, when asked for comment by NBC News, referred to a statement issued in 2019 that said he "knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York."

The same statement in 2019 said that Clinton had not spoken to Epstein "in well over a decade."

The documents include details from a Florida police detective of how Epstein and Maxwell recruited young women to be abused. The detective says in a filing that he learned of 30 victims of Epstein in his probe in the mid-2000s.

Other people were mentioned by name in the context of potentially having insight into the relationship between Epstein and Maxwell. 

Epstein killed himself in 2019, a month after being arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell, a British socialite, is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for charges related to recruiting and grooming young women to be sexually abused by her former boyfriend Epstein.

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